Sean Nesselrode Moncada (he/him) is an historian of art, architecture, and visual culture of the Americas. His research focuses on visual and material modernisms, their uneven implementation across the hemisphere, and their contested social and​ ecological dimensions. His first book, Refined Material: Petroculture and Modernity in Venezuela (University of California Press, 2023), examines the material, spatial, and theoretical development of Venezuelan modernism(s) through the lens of petroleum extraction and refinement.

He has published on subjects such as the politics of midcentury geometric abstraction, the rise and fall of informalist aesthetics as part of the leftist counterculture of 1960s Venezuela, and the visual legacies of settler colonialism in contemporary art. He is currently at work on an edited anthology of the poetry of the dissident artist collective El Techo de la Ballena, as well as a study of the relationship between archaeology, Indigeneity, and abstraction in South America. His writings have appeared in journals such as Architectural Theory Review, Caiana: Revista de historia del arte y cultura visual del Centro Argentino de Investigadores de Arte, and Hemisphere: Visual Cultures of the Americas. He is the recipient of the Peter C. Marzio Award for Outstanding Research in 20th-Century Latin American and Latino Art (International Center for the Arts of the Americas at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston) as well as Honorable Mention for the biennial Dissertation Award (Association for Latin American Art, College Art Association).

He holds a PhD in Art History and Archaeology from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. He is Associate Professor of Theory and History of Art and Design at the Rhode Island School of Design, as well as Graduate Program Director of the Liberal Arts Master's Program in Nature–Culture–Sustainability Studies. He resides in Lenapehoking, also known as Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.